The wide river stretching and turning away, the first sight
of Truan woods fresh with their young green, the banks of yellow
primroses clustered in the low valleys, and a glimpse of a blue
carpet spread beneath the shivering trees, a carpet of bluebells
and soft violets. The flaming gorse waved on the high hills, a
lark hovered in the air, and the figure of a fanner with his team of
horses paused for an instant on the skyline to watch the passing
train.

Then the broad river widened, they were past the saw-mills now,
past the farmhouse at the head of the creek, they were turning the
bend and the white jetties swung into view, the tall dangling
cranes, the masts of ships—sailing-vessels, steamers, dusty with
clay. The rough harbour water, the weatherbeaten horse ferry
making its way across to the farther hamlet, the sight of grey
houses, grey smoke, wet shining roofs glistening in the morning
sun—Plyn—home—home again once more.

The tears running down his face Christopher threw down the
carriage window. The wild wind tossed at his bare head, he
breathed in the pure, salt-laden air, he caught a whiff of the open
sea beyond the point.

Forgotten was London, forgotten were the long dreary years
of toil and strife, of love, bitterness, desire and frustration, these
were things that had never counted, that had served as some evil
dream to tear him from this place that was part of him.

He was home again, home to Plyn where he belonged, where he
had always belonged before birth, before creation; Plyn with her
lapping harbour water; her forest of masts, her hungry wheeling
gulls, her whisper of peace and comfort to a lonely heart; Plyn
with her own grey silent beauty.

Home; he tore open the carriage door and stepped upon the
familiar platform. Nobody recognised him. He had been a
careless boy of twenty-two when he sailed away, and now he was
a man nearing thirty-five, who had suffered much and worked
hard, a man whose fair hair was growing thin on the top, whose
forehead was lined, and whose shoulders stooped. No, there
was nobody here who knew him, no one he knew himself. There
was a woman standing on the platform, with eyes red from weep-
ing, and her mouth working strangely. She held her coat up to
her chin. He did not know her though, and would have passed
her by if she had not looked up at him oddly, with a half-glance
of recognition.

She put out her hand timidly and touched his arm. " Is it—is
it you, Christopher ? " she asked.

It was his sister Katherine.

203